Transgender Identities in the Press

A Corpus-based Discourse Analysis

Angela Zottola

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781350097568
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Filología
• Subtopic: Sociolingüística

Winner of the PROSE Award (2022) for Language & Linguistics For many people, newspapers are a key source of information on many topics, including issues related to gender and sexuality. Applying a broad range of corpus linguistic methods, Transgender Identities in the Press critically explores the linguistic cues and patterns used by the print media in their representation of trans people. Through close analysis of a corpus of articles collected from English-language newspapers from the UK and Canada, Angela Zottola focuses on the semantic categories of representation associated with transgender identities. Exploring a set of key terms, this book examines the semantic prosody and the language choices that each term is invested with, using Critical Discourse Analysis to investigate how the way the press represents this topic influences readers and their understanding of the major debates. Using a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods, Transgender Identities in the Press casts light on the complex picture of press language during a period of social change and increasing awareness. Highlighting both efforts to represent this community in an inclusive and non-discriminatory way and areas where there is need for improvement, this book illustrates a variety of issues from a critical and social perspective.

1

Introduction

Laws, rights and guidelines: What is the current situation for transgender people?

Two of the key terms in this work are identity and transgender. For this reason, I believe it is appropriate to open this reading by defining both. In this book, I aim to reflect on the use of language in relation to transgender identities, and it seems only fair to begin this discussion by looking at these terms starting from their most basic description, their vocabulary entry.

Transgender, adj. and n.

A. adj.

1. Designating a person whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond to that person’s sex at birth, or which does not otherwise conform to conventional notions of sex and gender.

Although now typically used as an umbrella term which includes any or all non-conventional gender identities, in wider use transgender is sometimes used synonymously with the more specific terms transsexual or transvestite.

2. Of or characterized by transgenderism; of or relating to transgender people.

B. n.

1. A transgender person; (sometimes) spec. a person who is transsexual or transvestite. Also occasionally (with the and plural agreement): transgender people as a class.

Cf. note at sense A. 1.

2. Transgenderism; transgender identity, experience, etc. (OED Online 2018)

Identity, n.

1.

a. The quality or condition of being the same in substance, composition, nature, properties, or in particular qualities under consideration; absolute or essential sameness; oneness.

b. An instance of this quality or condition.

c. Recurrence of the same; repetition. Also: an instance of this. Obsolete.

d. The selfsame thing. Obsolete. rare.

e. Logic. law or principle of identity: the principle expressed in the identical proposition A is A.

f. Absence of distinction between people of different ethnic groups. South African.

2.

a. The sameness of a person or thing at all times or in all circumstances; the condition of being a single individual; the fact that a person or thing is itself and not something else; individuality, personality.

b. Who or what a person or thing is; a distinct impression of a single person or thing presented to or perceived by others; a set of characteristics or a description that distinguishes a person or thing from others.

3. ersonal or individual existence. Obsolete. rare.

4. Mathematics.

a. The equality of two expressions for all values of the variables.

b. An equation that holds whatever values are assigned to any of the variables in it.

5. New Zealand and Australian. A person long resident or well known in a place; a local eccentric; such persons collectively. Frequently as old identity.

6. The condition of being identified in feeling, interest, etc.; identification with.

7. Mathematics.

a. An element of a set which, if combined with any element by a (specified) binary operation, leaves the latter element unchanged;

b. A transformation that gives rise to the same elements as those to which it is applied. (OED Online 2018)

I will come back to the definition of identity later. Let us now focus on the definition of transgender. My attention is drawn first by the fact that the definition includes two parts; the first considers the term as an adjective; the second considers it as a noun. The following chapters of this book will explain at greater length how problematic this second definition is. The definition brings us back to the long-standing dichotomy between gender and sex. An individual’s sex is mainly defined by their anatomy – which reproductive organs and chromosomes the person is born with. The gender of an individual defines their identification within recognized or emerging roles that are associated to behaviours and internal and external appearance socially associated to female, male or non-binary (i.e. identifying as neither female nor male) individuals. The association of sex and gender has been contested since the 1960s, and until today this discussion continues to evolve, including new terminology and new understandings of gender and sexual identities.

This evolution brought forward a new dichotomy which sees the juxtaposition of the terms transgender and cisgender; both terms include a prefix deriving from Latin, cis- and trans-, the former means on ‘the same side of/on the side of’ while the latter ‘cross to or on the farther side of/ beyond/ over’ (OED Online 2018). The two prefixes have been used in combination with the term gender for decades. The adjective transgender is now used as a collective/umbrella term to indicate an individual whose gender identity and biological sex do not correspond. The term cisgender is used to define people whose gender identity matches their biological sex. To use more inclusive definition, and one we endorse in this work, the term ‘is used to refer to people who do not identify with a gender diverse experience, without enforcing existence of a “normative” gender expression’ (Green 2006: 247). The term cisgender has a more recent history, being used in this connotation since the 1990s by trans studies scholars (Aultman 2014: 61). The term transgender, in the connotation described here, has been used since the 1980s, but its history can be traced back in literature to the 1960s (Williams 2014). The term transgender underwent many changes in its connotation and use. It has been associated over time to different terms such as transsexual or transvestite. Today, it is socially recognized as an adjective rather than a noun, and the distinction between this and other terms has been made clear. In the following chapters, I will also observe that a number of other terms have alternated over time in association to transgender identities (i.e. female-to-male [FTM], male-to-female [MTF], trans).

The second term widely used in this book is identity or rather identities. It is then necessary to give a definition to the concept of identity and position the perspective of this study toward this definition. The dictionary entry, in a way, already explains the choice of using the noun in its plural form. There are seven entries to the noun, and most of them are subdivided in further definitions, to signal the complexity of this term and all that it entails. The second definition given by the OED is the most appropriate to be considered in this work.

The concept of identity has been theorized in many different ways and from different perspectives. One of the definitions that this study relates to is the one proposed by Bucholtz and Hall (2005: 586), who describe identity as ‘the social positioning of self and other’. This definition puts identity in a broad context, where social implications play a pivotal role. At the same time, if we want to give a more detailed description of identity, we could think about it as ‘a set of traits, capacities, attitudes […] that an individual normally retains over a considerable period of time and that normally distinguishes that individual from other individuals’ (Shoemaker 2006: 41). This suggests that identity is not a fixed concept but a subjective one, always evolving, not ‘static’ (Llamas and Watt 2010), and ‘always “in process”’, as Stuart Hall (1996) posits. Thus, it seems appropriate to agree with the fact that ‘different persons can have the same identity – or at any rate, there can be as much similarity between the identities of different persons as there is between the identities of the same person at different times’ (Shoemaker 2006: 47).

Due to the context in which they develop, some identities are similar to others, while others are different. There is a tendency of grouping similar identities together, as the data considered for this work proves. While this practice can be useful in some cases, it can also cause the opposite effect in others. Chapter 5, for example, highlights that the collective representation of identities is not always the best choice, especially when considering that identity and language, as the means used to represent it, are being constantly negotiated and reshaped (Llamas and Watt 2010) and cannot be classified according to any specific general category. Each identity can be part of an indefinite number of groups, at the same time or at different times of its existence, based on kinship, relationships, physical appearance or sexual preference.

Bucholtz and Hall (2005: 585) maintain that identity is ‘a relational and socio-cultural phenomenon’. They continue by arguing that identity is constructed through and in interaction. Therefore, it is a result of discursive practices as identity is manifested, described, and represented through discourse. The essence of identity, engendered within discourse, accounts for the historical and institutional era it is generated in, the discursive strategies and choices employed in its construction, and also the style or enunciation used — according to the type of discourse, written or spoken (Hall 1996). Identity is constructed through the definition of the difference, when one identity is compared to an Other self, the definition of this identity builds on these differences and has a series of ideological and power relations at its basis.

The concept of identity becomes even more intricate when associated with gender. Expanding the reflection to these two terms in combination, as they are used throughout this book, transgender identities ‘represents [the] identities of many individuals who transcend gender norms in different ways’ (Burnes and Chen 2012: 117). It refers to those people who do not conform to their biological sex, and includes all variations that this label can include, ranging from people who choose medical interventions to those who rely on less invasive practices which allow them to fully acknowledge their identity by differentiating themselves from the binary and heteronormative concept that society has of men and women.

Transgender identity goes beyond ‘gender norms on both internal (intrapsychic) and external (social, relational, and community) spectra’ (Burnes and Chen 2012: 113). It subverts what society considers the norm in order to express people’s feelings of incongruence between what they perceive as their identity and their biological sex. It is not only the physical appearance that makes the identity. It is first and foremost the way in which language is used to describe it, as ‘bodies do not derive their meanings from pre-linguistics natural order, but are imbued with meaning through discourse’ (Hall and Zimman 2010: 166).

Transgender individuals are nowadays legally recognized in many countries around the world. In Europe, almost all countries have laws that regulate gender identity recognition, with places such as Malta and Ireland at the forefront (Sherpe 2015; Polese and Zottola 2019). Other countries such as Ukraine require people to undergo a psychiatric evaluation while others such as France make a distinction between minors and individuals over the age of eighteen. In this book, I focus on two specific countries, the United Kingdom and Canada, where the situation is quite different.

In the United Kingdom, the first legal document which in a way referred to trans people was the Sex Discrimination Act issued in 1975. This document attested that it was illegal to discriminate a person on the grounds of their anatomical sex. This document was amended in 1999 to specifically include people who have undergone gender reassignment surgery. In 2004 the Gender Recognition Act (henceforth the GRA) was promulgated after the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the UK government, through this law, infringed basic human rights in the case of Goodwin v United Kingdom. Goodwin, a British trans woman, applied for a state pension but was denied access to it at the women’s age. The GRA recognized that transgender people could change their legal gender in the United Kingdom, allowing trans people to acquire a new birth certificate and be legally recognized in their identifying gender. This process does not require the individual to have gone through gender reassignment surgery. The GRA specified that any individual who wanted to have their identifying gender legally recognized would need to have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria and have been living in the identifying gender for at least two years. In July 2018 the government began a consultation to reform the GRA 2004. Anti-discrimination laws were put in place through the Equality Act issued in 2010.

In Canada, the situation is different as the laws vary in each of the ten provinces and three territories. Significant changes in the legislative organization with regard to transgender people have occurred since 2015, but some of the provinces began these amendments even earlier. Of the ten provinces of Canada, Manitoba and Ontario in 2012, Alberta in 2014, Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia in 2015, and Prince Edward Island in 2016, have made it illegal to require gender reassignment surgery in order for gender identity to be legally recognized. Each individual born in those provinces can apply to have their identifying gender recognized on their birth certificate by submitting a statement where they affirm they identify as male or female. The individual’s statement needs to be accompanied by one written by their physician. In British Columbia since 2014, Saskatchewan since 2016, and New Brunswick since 2017 individuals born in these provinces are no longer required to have gender affirmation surgery to apply for a different birth certificate. Additionally, in Saskatchewan, since 2018, gender is no longer included on birth certificates (with regard to this, each province has a different regulation, but I will not go into detail here). In the province of Quebec, since 2015, individuals who were born in or have been resident in the province for at least one year can apply to change their birth certificate. As for the three territories, Nunavut since 2015, Northwest Territories since 2016, and Yukon since 2017 have all banned the requirement for gender affirmation surgery to apply for a birth certificate update. Since 2017 all provinces and territories have defined illegal and prosecutable discrimination against gender identity and expression by explicitly addressing the issue in the Canadian Human Rights Act. Much of the analysis on the Canadian data collected revolves around these legal issues.

A turning point, in the legal recognition of transgender identities, can be identified outside of the legal environment. In fact, in June 2018, the World Health Organization (WHO) changed its definition of transgender and transsexual identities. Until then trans people were considered a medicalized category and gender dysphoria was defined as a mental disorder. Since 2018 gender dysphoria has been declassified to a sexual health disorder and no longer connected to mental health.

The last point to touch upon in this first introductory section is guidelines for the use of inclusive and non-discriminatory language and terminology. A large number of guidelines can be found online, these have been put together by transgender people, cisgender people who identify as allies and by groups that work to support the transgender community. Some of the material retrievable online is specific to the workplace. Other resources discuss the use of pronouns or were created by universities. In this book, I mainly refer to guidelines offered by four organizations: GLAAD (n.d.-a), founded in 1985, which has been working ever since toward the cultural change and acceptance of the LGBTIQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex or queer/questioning) community within society (GLAAD n.d.-b); the National Center for Transgender Equality (2020a), founded in 2003 by transgender activists; All About Trans (2020), which aims to positively change the way in which the media perceives and represents transgender people; and the Beaumont Society, founded in 1966 in the UK to sup...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Contents 
• List of tables
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Transgender identities and the press
• 3 A matter of choices: Identity labels in English
• 4 Semantic prosodies in the press
• 5 Differences and similarities in the representation of trans identities
• 6 Conclusion
• Notes
• References
• Index
• Imprint